What is an IDA? It’s a savings plan for low income people. The Oregon legislature defines what kind of goals people can save toward, and it also sets a limit on how much money can be raised from donors. Contributions come from Oregonians like you and me. Low-income Oregonians enroll in the program and start saving to buy a home, or start a small business, or further their education, or other goals. Once they reach their financial goal, their savings are matched three to one, up to a maximum of $3,000. Along the way, they go to workshops to build financial savvy.

How many peoples’ lives are better because of this program? Cynthia Winters at The Neighborhood Partnership Fund, the nonprofit that oversees the program, informs me that there are currently over 1,100 low-income Oregonians enrolled. Last year, over 500 Oregonians completed the program. This year, even more will be able to enroll.

Then there’s the donors. Last year, this group of Oregonians at the other end of the economic spectrum from the participants also benefited from the program through the tax credit for donations. Here’s how the credit works:

The IDA Tax Credit begins with your contribution to the Neighborhood Partnership Fund. 75% of your contribution becomes a credit on your State of Oregon income tax return. For example, if you as an individual made a donation of $1000 to the IDA Initiative, you would then be qualified for a tax credit of 75%, or $750 against your state income taxes. The tax credit reduces the state taxes that you would otherwise pay. (Source)

I was surprised to learn a couple things when the 2007 report to donors came out a few weeks back. One, that only 333 people contributed $6 million. Two, that the average contribution was over $17,000. I contributed, but given the amounts raised from so few people, I imagine that my tiny contribution actually skewed all the data downwards! Regardless, I benefited from lowering my tax liability and from feeling like, for once, I was certain that the taxes I paid were doing something good.

So here’s a challenge to my readers, family, and friends in Oregon: consider making a donation this year (note: link is to a .pdf). Right now, there are over $7 million in tax credits remaining. And while it’s great that a handful of wealthy Oregonians are getting tax breaks in a way that’s pretty noble, the tax credit could also benefit a lot of “average” Oregonians out there…you know, the middle-income ones who complain about how their taxes are spent. I’d love to see that thousands of Oregonians contributed to this program in 2008 when the next report comes out, not just for the tax breaks, but for a greater sense of community and being in this together.

^{*I am not an accountant or tax specialist, and this is not financial advice. See someone who is qualified to help you that way if you want to know about how this might affect your particular situation.}

The YMCA centers in Portland offered nearly $300,000 in child-care scholarships last year to low-income families, including Fackler’s.

Deborah Murray, executive director at the Peninsula Children’s Center in North Portland, said the difference between what the state reimbursed and her center’s costs ranged from $160 to $300 per child each month.

How did the nonprofit stay in business?

“We got a bunch of grants. Hired a full-time development director and spent our time fundraising like crazy,” Murray says.

But the low state subsidy also meant some of the center’s staff earned little more than minimum wage.

Now that the state has increased its subsidy, Murray says the reimbursement is much closer to the actual cost of care.

She’s able to give staff raises. And more of the low-income parents who bring their children to the center have been able to qualify for help. (emphasis mine)

One of the things that doesn’t make sense to me about the way funding for nonprofit works, whether the source be government grants or private donors and foundations, is that there is a bias against covering the costs of wages for the people who actually do the work. A number of the grants I managed previously had funds only for “direct services,” and required that the cost of staffing necessary to provide those “direct” services be raised elsewhere. This ongoing funding crunch makes it hard to develop new programs or take on projects, as staff are already maxed out on responsibilities–and are not being paid a living wage or close to it.

One of the most annoying things I have experienced is looking at income guidelines for some of the federally-funded housing programs and realizing that a lot of the people who provide those services earn so little that they themselves are eligible for the subsidies.

Winter 2008 Issue .pdf

[Via Education and Class]

To editorialize on a related topic, according to our own DHS, 67,000 Oregonian children are eligible for OHP and not enrolled. When I think about the $$$ spent on failed Measure 50, I wonder what it could have done to spread the word about existing, funded services that are not being accessed.

Update: An article in today’s Oregonian reports that significantly more applicants may be accepted than DHS’s news release suggests, due apparently to budgetary surplus caused by lower enrollment levels.

NCAF Blasts Bush’s Veto of Labor-HHS

WASHINGTON (Nov. 13, 2007) Community Action Agencies (CAAs) that administer self-help to low-income Americans nationwide are exasperated by President Bush’s veto of the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education appropriations bill.

“This is the height of hypocrisy,” said National Community Action Foundation Executive Director David Bradley. “The President’s veto of Labor-HHS appropriations and passage of the Department of Defense appropriations in the same day is a clear-cut case of misplaced spending priorities. America will support investments in Iraq, but not invest in the education and well-being of U.S. children, low-wage workers and retirees.”

The bill would have increased Community Action’s core resource, the Community Services Block Grant (CSBG) and provided an increase for Head Start funding that many Community Action Agencies integrate with additional child and family development services. The bill also would have increased funding for senior programs that CAAs use for services such as senior centers and Meals on Wheels.

In addition, the Labor-HHS bill allocated 11.6 percent more for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, in which Community Action Agencies are reporting significant application increases. President Bush’s 2008 budget request contained a 17.5 percent cut in LIHEAP below 2007 funding levels.

“Recent forecasts of energy prices that are 11 percent higher than last year and colder months ahead have many low-wage working families worrying about how much energy they will need to stay warm this winter,” Bradley said. “President Bush’s veto is out of touch with the needs and expectations of the American people.

“The Labor-HHS appropriations bill would have reversed cuts in human services programs enacted over the past several years and would have made key reinvestments in America’s domestic priorities,” he said. “Voters expect our government to meet America’s domestic needs in a fiscally responsible way, and they expect the parties to work together to meet those needs.”

Her most recent post is of a survey designed to point out the advantages we may have that have nothing to do with our own work but rather have been handed to us because we were born at a particular place and time to particular parents. Each applicable statement is in bold type. Jeanne posted the survey with permission from the authors; information is at the bottom of the post. If you decide to repost, please do include that attribution information.

Father went to college
Father finished college
Mother went to college
Mother finished college
Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor.
Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers
Had more than 50 books in your childhood home
Had more than 500 books in your childhood home
Were read children’s books by a parent
Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18
Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18
The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively
Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18
Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs
Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs
Went to a private high school
Went to summer camp
Had a private tutor before you turned 18
Family vacations involved staying at hotels
Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18
Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them
There was original art in your house when you were a child
Had a phone in your room before you turned 18
You and your family lived in a single family house
Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home
You had your own room as a child
Participated in an SAT/ACT prep course
Had your own TV in your room in High School
Owned a mutual fund or IRA in High School or College
Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16 (not that I’m aware of)
Went on a cruise with your family
Went on more than one cruise with your family
Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up (Mainly the free ones–with six kids in the house, it makes sense)
You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family

By the standards on this list, I think I’m privileged, especially due to my parents’ interest in our education. But there’s a complicating factor: I didn’t grow up in the US, and I always felt that we had a high standard of living–compared to our neighbors. When my parents bought our house in Mexico, for the vast sum of $5,000 US, we eventually got a floor, running water, converted the livestock room into a kitchen, put in windows, wiring for electricity, and set up the washing machine that had been given to us. We lived in relative luxury, the eight of us in a three-bedroom, one-bathroom house.

At the same time, trips to the US demonstrated to me that we were, in fact, very poor by American standards. I continue to have a sense of not quite belonging here, even while recognizing the enormous advantages I have had simply by being part of my large, quirky, and awesome family.

People who work in nonprofits tend to not earn as much as their for-profit equivalents. I’m reminded of that when I see a local grocery store advertising checker jobs that pay more than my management job. Part of being in the non-profit ghetto is that I cannot afford to have my own place, in the event that I wanted to. But there are non-monetary rewards to my work, even on the most challenging days. So, I feel privileged. Or maybe thankful is the word I am looking for.

Attribution: based on an exercise developed by Will Barratt, Meagan Cahill, Angie Carlen, Minnette Huck, Drew Lurker, Stacy Ploskonka at Illinois State University

See the National Community Action blog for more.

Both make my heart happy by containing a colon in the title, and both have inspired me to pick up my phone in the middle of a sentence and call someone–anyone–to talk about the contents. So far, though, both do little to challenge capitalism itself as necessarily creating conditions of poverty and uncertainty. For Sachs, the consumerism of wealthy nations is the ticket out of poverty for the poorest nations, even if that ticket is just for a round trip to a sweatshop that will pick up and move elsewhere as soon as the workers start to ask for a bit more a la Oliver Twist.

Elizabeth Warren’s essay in the Ending Poverty anthology contains some of the more remarkable assertions I’ve read about how Americans spend their money. It’s counterintuitive and thought-provoking, and I’ll write about it more later.